Kilo Lingo

(zhèng cháng) - normal, regular, ordinary in Mandarin

zhèngcháng

Traditional: 正常

Line drawing of 正常
Coloured illustration of 正常
HSK 4
#758 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

normal, regular, ordinary

Word origin

正常 (zhèngcháng) 'normal' joins 正 (zhèng, 'correct, regular') and 常 (cháng, 'constant, usual'). 常 is a phono-semantic compound with the 巾 (jīn, 'cloth') radical and 尚 (shàng) as phonetic, originally a long garment and hence 'lasting, usual'.

Origin
compound
Root
正 (zhèng, 'correct') + 常 (cháng, 巾 cloth + 尚 phonetic, 'usual')

Stroke order

Stroke order for 正

Stroke order for 常

Examples

This is quite normal.

Everything is normal today.

Everything is perfectly normal.

His heartbeat is normal.

This is a normal phenomenon.

正常 (zhèng cháng) means normal, regular, ordinary. It is used as an adjective in everyday Mandarin speech.

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This word is part of lesson 16.